Meeting of an Innocent
by Magic Carpet Ride
Summary: How Ivy met Noah for the very first time...


**A/N:** I always wondered how Ivy and Noah met, and the plot bunny refused to leave me...This is the result. I honestly have no idea how old Ivy or Noah are in the movie, so if I get the age difference wrong, forgive me. Ooh, and reviews are always appreciated, but constructive criticism is thoroughly welcomed too :)

**Summary: **My take on how Ivy met Noah for the very first time.

**Disclaimer: **Trust me, if I owned the characters, would I be writing fan fiction?

She had heard him before she had seen his colour. A soft snuffling whimper- barely audible to anyone else- but to Ivy Walker's keen ears, it was alarmingly loud. She had been walking home from school, shivering at the chill sweeping across the village that signalled the end of Autumn, when she heard the pathetic noise coming from behind a cottage.

Ivy turned in the general direction, her cane outreaching. "Is someone there?" There was no vocal response, but she distinctly heard a scratching noise, like nails touching wood. For a moment, she felt a wave of giddying fear pass through her as the wind blew past. The creatures had not come for many years, but the village lived always in apprehension, ever aware of their presence just past the borders. She suddenly felt that she had been wrong to tell her mother that she could walk home by herself from school that day. She was only eleven years old, and blinded for years. Should...something...attack her, she had only her cane, her ears, and the faint wisps of light and colour that she sometimes saw in flashes as defence.

Despite her fear, Ivy steeled herself and repeated her question, praying that the noises would be only her wild imagination and nothing else. "Is there someone there?" This time she heard another whimper, louder than the last one. To her ears it sounded like a wounded animal, and her fear vanished in an instant. She was a compassionate child, and to her mind there was no thought more deplorable than leaving a helpless creature alone in pain.

She cautiously touched the edging of the cottage with her cane and followed it until she reached the end of the house. She stopped and blinked, making out a fuzzy outline and a hunched figure. Another muffled sniffle came from the figure and Ivy reached out gently with her hand as if to pet it – then she suddenly brushed across a very human- like hand. Expecting to touch soft fur and whiskers she jumped back, momentarily startled.

"Oh! You...you're a person! Whatever is the matter? Are you all right? Why are you sitting out here in the cold by yourself?"

She reached out again and knelt down, this time taking hold of a spindly hand. "Why are you here?" she asked gently, smiling at a face that she would never see.

"They hit me," finally came a voice, soft and child-like. "They hit me. " There was a pause, and the sound of distressed breathing.

"Who hit you?" Ivy asked. "And why on earth did they hit you?"

"The boys. They hit me."

Ivy sighed in indignation, feeling the wind sweeping through her thin coat. "Why?"

"Because I'm dumb," came the voice again, quavering in fear and sadness. "They hit me because I'm dumb like they say."

"Dumb?" Ivy's voice rose in disbelief. "They hit you because they say you are dumb?"

And then suddenly she realised who the figure she was speaking to was.

"You're Noah Percy, aren't you?"

There was an almost insusceptible nod of his head. Ivy bit her lip, realising that she knew who he was, although she had never come across him before. She recalled her father once speaking of him to her mother. "So odd in the head," he had told her in a hushed tone, "He kept hitting and crying out...There was nothing else we could do but lock him..." he had lowered his voice then, and Ivy had not been able to catch the rest of his words.

Yes, she certainly knew of Noah. She had heard the boys occasionally speaking of him in scornful tones, despite of the unspoken law that Noah was to be accepted and tolerated and nothing else. But how could the boys not laugh at him? He had the innocence of a child, a mind too young and stupid for his sixteen years and a frighteningly odd appearance, if you listened to their words.

Noah was the unspoken of outsider, the one thing in the village that did not fit the expectations, almost as unspoken of as the creatures in the woods. Ivy suddenly remembered a town luncheon where someone had burst into spontaneous joyous laughter, but when she had questioned it, she had been curtly told not to discuss it again. It only now occurred to her that it had been Noah.

"Well, I'm Ivy Walker."

"I know." Noah whispered. Ivy blinked again in surprise. She had not thought that he would ever know who she was, but then again, she supposed he had been underestimated too many times to count.

"I...I am sorry they hit you," Ivy said softly, clutching the hand tightly in compassion.

"No one deserves to be treated in such a manner."

There was a brief silence. "Do you mind if I touch your face so I can see you in my mind?" she suddenly asked him.

Taking his calm silence to be a yes, she reached up and gently touched his forehead. It did not feel any different to that of her fathers or her other male friends. She ran a hand down his face, brushing wetness on his thin cheeks (either tears or blood, she supposed angrily) and then tentatively touched a prominent nose. Reaching upwards she could only find a tangled snarl of hair that fell past his eyes. Although she could not see Noah's face, she could see how much brighter his colour became when she touched him. His ragged breathing slowed to a more relaxed pace, and Ivy smiled. In her mind she could only see a lonely and frightened boy who needed a friend.

"Well then Noah Percy," she whispered. "You certainly don't feel dumb to me. And you look quite handsome in my mind."

Noah giggled suddenly, and Ivy realised with relief that as quickly as pain came to him, just as quickly it would leave. The wind blew again and both of them shivered in the cold.

"We had better go, otherwise we'll catch a sickness." She paused. "Would you like me to take you home?"

"Yes," Noah said happily, bright streaks radiating outwards from his colour.

Ivy clicked her tongue. "Now now, what do you say?

"Yes... please."

"That's right. And very well done too,"

She could feel his hand trembling in pleasure from her praise.

"I think we're going to get along fine Noah," she whispered up at an innocent who already loved her beyond words. "Don't you think so?"

He nodded again, and she led him out of the cottage and away down the path.


End file.
